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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227030">Drakestroke: The Nearly Lost Snapshots</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_R_Scott/pseuds/C_R_Scott'>C_R_Scott</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Drakestroke by CR Scott/A Few Novel Ideas [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), DCU, Red Robin (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drakestroke, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:47:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,435</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227030</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_R_Scott/pseuds/C_R_Scott</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of the short writings created by myself (C.R. Scott/A Few Novel Ideas) on Tumblr back in 2012 while playing in this sandbox with LectorEl, but never officially migrated to AO3 at the time. That is being rectified now...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Janet Drake/Slade Wilson, Tim Drake/Tam Fox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Drakestroke by CR Scott/A Few Novel Ideas [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904860</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Drakestroke Collective</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Flashback</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            [Restricted Work] by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl">LectorEl</a>. Log in to view.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally written as a birthday present for Lectorel.  For those of you who have not read it yet, this story is linked to the wonderful Big Bang fic written by Lectorel entitled "Family, Made By Hand". Please read that before this one. It can be found linked in the "Drakestroke Collective" collection.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p></p>
  <div class="">
    <p>"Robin? Rob, is something wrong?"</p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>Conner's voice startled Tim from his reverie as he stood in an alley within a shanty town in Mexico City that the Titans were investigating. A drug lord by the name of El Padrino used to be a big name in the cartels over ten years ago, but was rumored to have run afoul of an assassination group that dismantled his operations and killed him. However, someone in Mexico had revived the "El Padrino" name and was quickly rising back to power.</p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>The Titans were on the case because this new "El Padrino" was using off-world tech to take out the competition. That night, they were trying to track down the source of the alien weapons. Research determined that this shanty town used to be the location of one of El Padrino's bases. There were rumors in Mexico City that it was active again.</p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>However, something about this place felt strange to Tim. Almost familiar. "Nothing's wrong," he told Conner, despite his feelings.</p>
  </div>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The team proceeded with their covert infiltration plan, though midway through they were discovered and everything quickly went to hell. "I see Delgado!" Tim said through the comm link as he spotted one of El Padrino's known lieutenants. "Going after him!" At the sight of Red Robin, the dark, heavily tattooed bald man took off for the interior of the maze-like compound. It took a minute, but Tim finally caught up to Delgado when he slipped into a small office. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Once inside the dark room, Tim froze. "What the--" Delgado was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a man was seated behind a massive desk that filled nearly all the available space. This person didn't even acknowledge Red Robin's presence. Instead, he was staring with disbelief at a furious, but familiar, woman who was pointing a gun menacingly at him. <em>“I’ll ask you one more time. Where. Is. The. Body?”</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Rob! Watch out!" Before Tim could even blink, he felt Bart grab and drag him quickly off to the side as a gun went off from the shadows. A bullet sliced through the air where his head was just a split second earlier. The triggerman, Delgado, was quickly subdued by Cassie as she caught him in her lasso and knocked him out. "Is everything OK here?" Conner asked as he caught up to them in the office. He had another unconscious lieutenant slung over his shoulder.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"I think so, but what about--?" Tim got his bearings and looked around the office, his words cutting off in surprise. The man and woman he'd seen earlier were both gone. There was no large desk. Instead, the room was filled, wall to wall, with traditional and alien weapons and ammunition. This wasn't an office, but an armory. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"What about what?" Cassie asked, looking over Tim curiously. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Tim quickly glanced over at Conner and made a point to nod towards him. "Ah-- I just was wondering if you'd found the other lieutenant or if we'd lost her in the confusion," he lied.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Conner grinned. "She didn't get very far," he said confidently as he went over to hoist the other unconscious lieutenant over his other shoulder. "C'mon, let's see if we can't get a few answers out of these guys before we deliver them to the Federales.  BB's already calling the Justice League to help confiscate all these weapons. I saw at least three other rooms filled with stuff like this around here.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His friends began to exit the room, though Cassie hung back when she realized Tim was lingering behind. "You coming?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Tim had been staring very intently at a strange discoloration on the far wall. While his friends had been walking out, he'd gone up to the wall and was taking a closer look at it. The stain was old, and clearly there had been multiple attempts to clean it up. It looked like blood splatter. When he made the realization, a chill ran down his spine, though he didn't know exactly why. "Yeah, I'm coming," he said as he reluctantly turned away from the wall and followed after friends. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He gave the room one final uncertain sweep with his eyes before turning his back on it and shutting the door.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Assassination Games Commence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Imagining this taking place during the whole Assassination Game storyline of Red Robin where Tim arranged to be shot by the Scarab to fake a spinal injury.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Janet felt the bottom fall out of her stomach as her heart instantly lodged itself in her throat. The cup of coffee she had been holding slipped from numb fingers. The sound of the shattering cheap ceramic and spilling liquid barely registered on her senses. She didn’t even hear the sound of Slade swearing and calling her name.</p>
<p>Practically every ounce of her attention was on the television screen.</p>
<p>Live from Gotham City, in the middle of a crowded press conference on the steps of a police station no less, an assassin’s shot had found her only son.</p>
<p>The sound of his pained cry echoed loudly in her ears as the image of him falling to the ground, bleeding profusely from the abdomen, seared itself deeply into her mind.</p>
<p>She didn’t even realize she’d grabbed her weapons and was heading towards the door until she found herself wrapped up in Slade Wilson’s strong arms.</p>
<p>“Let me go!”</p>
<p>“Stop it, Janie!”</p>
<p>“My son needs me!”</p>
<p>“Not like this, he doesn’t!”</p>
<p>Janet tried to break Slade’s hold on her, but she couldn’t seem to focus enough to twist out of his grip or reach the right pressure points. She couldn’t even see straight.</p>
<p>Only then did she realize that there were tears in her eyes.</p>
<p>“Look, Janie. He’s still alive. The Bats interrupted the hit,” Slade tried to talk sense, speaking calmly but firmly into her ear as she turned her attention back to the screen where police and emergency medical personnel were wheeling him into an ambulance. “Wayne won’t spare any expense on making sure Tim stays alive, and we’ll head out to Gotham as soon as we can. But I’m not letting you run out of here half-cocked and without a plan. You won’t be any good to him if you get yourself killed before you reach the city.”</p>
<p>Janet slowly, but surely, began to calm herself down.</p>
<p>“If my son dies, everyone responsible for his death will burn,” she murmured as Slade relaxed his hold on her.</p>
<p>“I’ll bring the matches.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Have You Tried the Cemetary</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A drabble where Tim gets the first hint that his mother may not be quite a dead as everyone believed she was.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An “investigative journalist” has been trying to pin down Tim Drake for an interview about his family, particularly his mother. She is relentless, almost as much as Vicki Vale, and that irritates the Waynes to no end.</p><p>Finally, she manages to catch Tim alone and presses him for more information. He’s livid and lashes out, confronting her with the fact that he’s checked her background and knows she’s not a real reporter. He demands to know who she really is.</p><p>Her cover blown, she becomes subdued as she shows him her real ID. She’s a CIA agent. He asks why she’s hounding him.</p><p>“I’m looking for your mother.”</p><p>“Have you tried the cemetery?” he remarks bitterly as he opens the front door. “You can stop by on the way out of town.”</p><p>The agent doesn’t budge. “I know she’s not there.”</p><p>“And how would you know that?”</p><p>“Because up until a month ago, I was her handler.”</p><p>Tim freezes.</p><p>“And now she’s gone rogue and become my problem.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Walls Have Ears</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A drabble written in response to one written by LectorEl starring Tam Fox and Janet Drake where Tam finds herself with an unexpected new bodyguard shortly after Scarab's attempted assassination attempt on Tim (https://lectorel.tumblr.com/post/40016586767/drakestroke-tam-and-janet-for-cr). This drabble I wrote is set shortly after that scene.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p>Tim lifted his head from the paperwork Tam had just delivered to him at his office in Wayne Tower. "What did you say her name was?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Janet Grey," Tam said with a slight shrug of her shoulders.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Hm... I'll ask Alfred to run a background check. Can't be too careful right now." Despite the calm, matter-of-fact tone to his voice, a melancholy expression crossed Tim's face before he turned his focus back onto the Neon Knights files in his hands. Tam didn't miss the look.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"What wrong?" she asked curiously.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"It's nothing," Tim said with a shake of his head. There were several seconds of pregnant silence before he stopped pretending to read the file and sighed. "Just... my mother's name was Janet," he finally admitted.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Tam felt a pang of sympathy. "Oh," she said simply. The young woman noticed how Tim seemed to pointedly avoid meeting her gaze. She thought for a long moment, chewing her bottom lip a little before screwing up her courage to voice a small question that had risen to the surface of her mind. "What was she like?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Tim turned his attention away from the Neon Knights files and glanced over his shoulder at Tam with a perplexed look.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Your mother," Tam murmured hesitantly. "What was she like?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His gaze turned to the nearest window in his office and almost immediately went distant. "She was..." Tim's brow furrowed slightly as he sifted through his memories of a time of his life nearly a decade in the past. He finally closed his eyes as he turned his thoughts more inward. Tam almost worried that maybe she shouldn't have asked the question.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Then she noticed the corners of Tim's lips quirk upward, just a little. The smile was small and sad and nostalgic. The tender expression had the effect of softening the sharp edges Tim's face, especially around his eyes and made him look younger as he opened his eyes to meet Tam's gaze...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>No...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Not younger...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The expression made him look his own age.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>-----</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>"She was Mom."</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>From a nearby hotel room within range of the tiny listening device/tracker planted earlier on Tamara Fox's bag, Slade and Janet listened in general silence to the conversation Tim and Tam were having less than a city block away.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Janet had been cleaning her rifle as they listened in on the children via a receiver on the table, though as her son spoke, her movements had grown slower until finally her hands stilled on the partially reassembled gun.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Janie?" Slade said softly, almost setting a hand on her shoulder.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She shook her head to Slade's unvoiced implied question and quickly went back to putting her rifle back together, the pieces clicking and snapping into place a little more sharply than normal.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Would Anything Have Changed?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>After reuniting with his mother, Tim has a small moment with his godfather, Slade Wilson.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For the first time since this whole fiasco started, Tim was finally alone with Slade. While he was still less than happy that Deathstroke was his godfather, there was a question that he wanted to ask the one-eyed mercenary without his mother present.</p>
<p>“Slade?” he asked while he studied the tablet he was using to hack the CIA network.</p>
<p>“Yeah?” Slade’s attention was focused solely on sharpening his sword. He didn’t even pause to glance over at his godson’s general direction.</p>
<p>“If you had known from the beginning that it was me behind the mask, back when I was Robin, would it have changed anything?”</p>
<p>The whetstone stopped its movement along the edge of Slade’s sword. A small almost sad smile touched a corner of the older man’s lips.</p>
<p>“Kid,” he said without any hesitation. “It would have changed everything.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. When Jack Met Janet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Notes about how CIA agent Janet Grey first met Jack Drake.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>- Jack first met Janet when she saved his life. An archaeologist on a dig site in Central America that was being fought over by local drug cartels, Jack found himself caught in the crossfire when he discovered a wealth of ancient Mayan/Aztec gold and artifacts in ruins. Janet was brought in because intel said a CIA most wanted (El Padrino) was going to be there.</p><p>- First thing Jack said to Janet was, “Wow… You’re gorgeous…” This being said shortly after Janet literally threw him behind cover to avoid a hail of gunfire.</p><p>- On that assignment, Jack ended up acting as an impromptu guide for Janet while tracking down El Padrino’s activity raiding historic ruins in the region.</p><p>- Jack, especially young adult Jack, was always socially awkward around women. Girls found him odd or boring because of his interest in archaeology, especially when they found him a far cry from the Indiana Jones style of archaeologist.</p><p>- Jack was really touched when Janet took a genuine interest in his work during one late night conversation. She was staying up to act as a look out, and Jack tried his best to keep her company. After talking for hours, right before passing out from sheer exhaustion, Jack murmured sleepily, “You are one amazing lady, Janet Grey. Probably the best treasure I’ve ever found on a dig.”</p><p>- Jack fell in love with Janet first, but he had initially resigned himself to nothing ever coming of it because of her job at the CIA. So, he was surprised when Janet ran into him back stateside a few weeks later at the Mayan/Aztec exhibit opening at the Gotham City museum of history.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Assassin Trio Lives</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A few notes about the Drakestroke AU, including how the entire Assassin Trio from the early Red Robin run (Z, Owens, and Pru) all survived their encounter with the first Council of Spiders ambush in the desert while Tim was searching for clues to how Bruce Wayne was lost in time.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>- For days after Janet leaves the CIA and goes rogue to protect her son, Tim gets the sense that he’s being watched during his civilian guise. However, despite his best efforts, he can’t find any proof that he’s being spied on. He even enlists Oracle’s help, but she can’t find anything out of the ordinary. Friends and family start to wonder if Tim’s heightened sense of paranoia is because he’s been working too hard lately as Red Robin. It gets bad enough that even Tim begins to wonder about that himself.</p><p>- Despite crossing paths with Tim Drake’s Robin a couple of times in the past, Slade never realized that the young vigilante was Janie’s spawn. This was mostly because his interaction with Robin occurred during the period in his life where his mind was fairly well fucked with due to his son Jericho and use of a serum that drove him partially insane.</p><p>- Because all members of the Assassin Trio survive in my head during the early Red Robin run, turns out Z actually trained under Janet Grey during a brief stint in the CIA before he flipped to the League of Assassins. Janet learns Z and two of his compatriots have since left the League and are currently “freelance”, so she recruits him/them to help her protect her son. </p><p>- Upon meeting the Assassin Trio, it’s Pru and her lack of brain-to-mouth filter that accidentally lets slip to Janet that they worked with Tim recently…</p><p>…back when they were still members of the League…</p><p>…on Ra’s al Ghul’s orders.</p><p>To say that Janet is NOT HAPPY would be the understatement of the year.</p><p>- To Z, Ra’s al Ghul might have been referred to as “Master”, but Janet Grey will always be referred to as “Boss”. Originally it was something that started off as a bit of a joke back when she was training him… And afterwards it just stuck as a respectfully affectionate nickname. “Yes Boss,” is a phrase used frequently in her presence.</p>
  </div></div>
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